Bubblestand

If you were looking for the article about the location, then see Bubblestand (location).

Characters

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• Scallop Template:Cameo
• Squidward Tentacles
• Patrick Star
• Duck bubble Template:Debut
• Caterpillar bubble Template:Debut
• Elephant bubble Template:Debut
• Butterfly bubble Template:Debut

Synopsis

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"Hey, Squidward! Wanna blow some bubbles?"

The episode begins with SpongeBob walking outside to breathe in the peacefulness of the neighborhood in the morning. Suddenly, he begins to loudly build a bubble stand, much to the annoyance of Squidward, who demands SpongeBob to be quiet while he is practicing his clarinet-playing. SpongeBob stops for a time, takes a few tentative taps of his hammer, and then quickly finishes construction before Squidward has a chance to complain again.

At the newly built stand, SpongeBob offers customers an opportunity to blow a bubble for twenty-five cents. Patrick comes by and asks to try it out. However, he does not have any money, so he "borrows" a quarter from SpongeBob to pay for it. Unfortunately, Patrick's strained blowing fails to produce a bubble. SpongeBob offers to teach him for an extra quarter, which he happily "loans" to Patrick. SpongeBob then demonstrates his somewhat peculiar, yet effective, bubble-blowing technique. SpongeBob's technique produces, among others, a massive elephant-shaped bubble that gets stuck in Squidward's house and pops.

The fuming Squidward comes out and approaches the now ostensibly closed bubble stand. He demands to know how they can cause so much disruption just by blowing bubbles. SpongeBob explains that he is creating art and utilizing his technique to its fullest potential. Squidward scoffs at SpongeBob's ideas of art and marketing, sending SpongeBob and Patrick back to their homes in shame. Still snickering, Squidward begins to examine the bubble wand out of growing curiosity. As he tries to blow a bubble himself, SpongeBob quickly comes out and tells Squidward to pay a quarter, shocking him. Squidward reluctantly lays down a quarter for the bubble, suggesting that it is a very simple feat.

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Squidward's house encapsulated by a giant bubble.

Squidward attempts to impress the two with his skill, to no avail. All the while, SpongeBob and Patrick try to convince him to use the technique. Fed up, Squidward furiously and mockingly copies their technique, finally screaming into the wand in anger. His screams end up producing a giant bubble, thoroughly impressing SpongeBob and Patrick.

Squidward heads back inside his house and begins to play his clarinet once more, with SpongeBob and Patrick chanting his name while dancing. However, the giant bubble descends and encapsulates Squidward's house, unearthing it and floating with it up in the air.

When at last Squidward looks outside to greet his "fans," he sees himself high above the ground with SpongeBob and Patrick little more than specks. The bubble then pops with explosive force, prompting SpongeBob and Patrick to look at each other nervously and retreat to their houses.

Once Squidward's house floats back down to the ground, Squidward ends the episode by letting out a few final feeble notes from his clarinet.

Running gags

• SpongeBob blowing bubble art.
• SpongeBob offering 25 cents for bubble lessons.
• SpongeBob biting into quarters.
• Squidward constantly failing to blow bubbles without the technique.

Production

Art

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• Patrick owns the bubblestand.
  Patrick owns the bubblestand.
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Release

• This episode is available on the SpongeBob Schwammkopf Folge 1, SpongeBob on DVD Volume 1, Complete 1st Season, Seascape Capers, Nicktoons TV Favourites Volume 1, The 1st Season: Volume 1, Tea Under The Tree, Tea at the Treedome, Hunting at the Bottom, First 100 Episodes, SpongeBob SquarePants, iSponge Offer Pack, Lost at Sea (Polish only), The Ultimate SpongeBob Box Set, SpongeBob SquarePants Vol. 1, The SpongeBob Super Square Collection, The Complete First Season, From the Beginning, Part 1, The SpongeBob SquarePants Collection, The SpongeBob SquarePants 8 Season DVD Collection, The First & Second Seasons, Movies & TV Collection, and The Best 200 Episodes Ever DVDs along with SpongeBob SquarePants Volume 1 on GBA Video and on VideoNow.
• This episode is also available on The Seascape Capers VHS tape.

Reception

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• The episode was ranked 3rd place in the "Top 100 Moments in Nicktoons History."
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Trivia

General

• According to Stephen Hillenburg's pitch bible, the title was originally supposed to be "Bubbles."
  • In the Croatian dub, this episode's title is "Mjehurići," whose meaning retains the original title.

File:SpongeBob SquarePants 2001 Burger King commercial

• A clip from this episode was used in a 2001 Burger King commercial promoting SpongeBob toys at the time. The commercial even references the bubble-blowing technique.
• The Waikikis, Prince Paul, and Wordsworth made a song based on this episode called "Prince Paul's Bubble Party," which can be heard on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie - Music from the Movie and More... soundtrack album (though not the first movie itself).

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Hold it.

• SpongeBob's technique for blowing bubbles:
  • "Go like this" (lift your left foot up off the ground).
  • spin around a couple times and stop.
  • "Double-take" (dart your head to the side) three times.
  • Pelvic thrust (thrust yourself left and right, pelvis first) and stop on your right foot. "Don't forget it."
  • Spin your upper body and "bring-it-a-round-town."
  • bounce on your back twice.
  • shape-shift your body into various surreal shapes and forms.
  • proceed to blow your bubble.
• SpongeBob's quote "Now it's time to bring it around town. Bring-it-a-round-town," has enjoyed constant renown as an internet meme.
  • It is also used in the online games Hooked on You! and Delivery Dilemma.
  • It is also used as a celebration dance when SpongeBob completes a tile puzzle in the video game Revenge of the Flying Dutchman.
  • It is also used in the Pixter game SpongeBob SquarePants: Aqua Adventure.
• SpongeBob's bubble-blowing technique from this episode was used in a 2012 Yosicle commercial.
• The ship bubble has the same foghorn as SpongeBob's alarm clock.
• The bubble that enters Squidward's house was originally going to be a tugboat and not an elephant.
• The "It's a giraffe!" scene is shown in the 2005 movie Zathura: A Space Adventure (also simply known as Zathura) before Walter switches it to SportsCenter.
• Patrick's line "It's a giraffe!" was recycled in the video games Battle for Bikini Bottom and its remake.
• In "Wormy," SpongeBob doesn't know what a butterfly is and thinks that Wormy (who transformed into a butterfly) is a monster, but in this episode, he blows a butterfly bubble.
• Irony: When Squidward does the technique, he bounces a total of eleven times on various parts of his body, then he screams into the bubble wand. This means that despite inaccurately imitating SpongeBob's technique, he blows a bigger, "better" bubble than SpongeBob did throughout the episode.
• When Squidward's house is in the air, an outright glass bottle the size of other buildings in Bikini Bottom is visible. The only other building seen throughout the seires that uses a glass bottle as part of the structure is the Fancy! restaurant, which is on its side
• SpongeBob collects quarters in this episode, but the amount continues to change throughout the episode. It is likely SpongeBob kept the other quarters.
• At the end of the episode, when Squidward starts playing his clarinet very weakly, a portion of the scene is cut on all Nickelodeon USA broadcasts. This is due to the screen fading to black when this happens. Despite this unusual edit, all Nicktoons USA and Nick@Nite broadcasts, all digital and streaming releases on Amazon Prime Video, Paramount+, and iTunes, the VideoNow versions, The Seascape Capers VHS tape release, and DVD releases retain this scene.
• This is the first episode packaged or aired as a non-pilot episode.
  • "Squeaky Boots" was never intended to be a pilot episode and was produced earlier.
• This is the first episode to introduce the APM tracks "Maui Beach" and "Old Hilo March."
• This is the first episode that Ennio Torresan, Jr. and Erik Wiese worked on together.
• This is the first episode to have five writers.
  • This episode is currently tied with "Friend or Foe," "The Clash of Triton," and "Frozen Face-Off" for having the most writers of an episode.
    • This is also the only standard-length episode to have five writers.
• This is the first episode where Patrick plays a major role.
• This is the first episode to play "The Rake Hornpipe" outside of a scene involving the Krusty Krab or Mr. Krabs.
• This is the first episode to show the insides of Squidward's and Patrick's houses.
• This is the first episode in the series without any known deleted scenes.
• This is the last episode ever written by Stephen Hillenburg before his death on November 26, 2018.
• There is an online game based on this episode called SpongeBob's Bubblegram Game.
• In the Polish dub, this episode is called "Bańki mydlane," which translates to "Soap Bubbles."
• This episode was paired up with different episodes:
  • On the November 10, 2006 airing, this episode was paired with "Rock Bottom."
  • This episode was paired up with "Sing a Song of Patrick" during the Best Buddies Week.
• Four of the poses SpongeBob and Patrick make when cheering Squidward after he blows a giant bubble were eventually redrawn as various stock art.

Cultural references

• The bubble-blowing technique includes references to "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
• The song that Squidward plays (poorly) on his clarinet at the end of the episode is "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
• SpongeBob biting the quarters is a reference to a common trope in older films, especially Westerns, where people would bite on coins as a means to test their authenticity.

Errors

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SpongeBob's walkway is missing the rocks.

• At the very beginning, on the long shot, SpongeBob's walkway looks like the road instead of a rocky walkway.
• When Squidward says, "Can we lower the volume, please? I can't work with all that racket going on!" to SpongeBob in the beginning, there is not any glass in his windows.

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SpongeBob's door is missing.

• When Patrick's rock opens, SpongeBob's pineapple is missing its front door.
  • Similarly, in one scene, Squidward's door is missing.

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SpongeBob's eye color is washed off.

• When SpongeBob is talking to Patrick and says, "Good morning to you, sir. Would you care to blow a bubble?" his eyes are so washed off that it looks as if SpongeBob does not have an eye color.
• When Patrick yells, "It's a giraffe!" he is on the left side of SpongeBob, but when the bubble goes into Squidward's house, he is on the right side of him.
• When Squidward leaves his house, the interior of his doorway has a similar appearance to the red wall found on the second floor. Later, when he enters his house, the interior of the first floor has its normal green wall appearance instead of red.
• When SpongeBob repeats the bubble-blowing technique to Squidward again as he is trying to blow bubbles, he looks three times to the left instead of right.

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• After SpongeBob spins while Squidward tries to blow a bubble, right before it cuts back to Squidward, there is a transparent picture of a person's hand holding a clapboard, which only appears for about a frame. This occurs again right after SpongeBob says, "Don't forget the woo!" right before it cuts back to Squidward. It is likely a picture of some draft or production code for this episode.

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SpongeBob's house is missing.

• When SpongeBob and Patrick chant Squidward's name, SpongeBob's house is nowhere to be seen.

Video

• File:Nickelodeon - SpongeBob promo (1999)
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